Mickey (Jon Voight, right) gives his grandson (Devon Bagby) crazy advice. (
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COMING HOME, 1978 (©United Artists/courtesy Everett)
MIDNIGHT COWBOY, 1969 (Courtesy Everett Collection)
RUNAWAY TRAIN, 1985 (
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DELIVERANCE, 1972 (Courtesy Everett Collection)
THE CHAMP, 1979 (
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While the title character on Showtime’s hit series “Ray Donovan” struggles with how to be a man of conscience, his father — ex-con Mickey, a hedonist gangster — shows how uncomplicated life can be when scruples aren’t part of the equation.
“They both have a resourcefulness, but Mickey lacks a certain moral spine his son is striving for,” says Jon Voight, the Oscar-winning actor who’s turned his role of Mickey into television’s most entertaining alpha thug in years. “He’s used his resourcefulness to survive in all sorts of situations that he’s gotten himself into. He’s a bit of a mess.”
Boston bruiser Mickey is a man of contradictions: a murderer, drug user and doting grandfather whose idea of sage birds-and-bees advice for Ray’s son — not to mention what’s acceptable library computer- console viewing — will make your jaw drop.
Voight didn’t know all of this when he first read creator Ann Biderman’s pilot script, but he knew it was a great part. “Every time he’s on-screen, he’s doing something extraordinary, and he’s talked about when he’s not. It couldn’t be a better part for an actor, and I’m very fortunate to be the fella they chose.”
As bullish as he is about the quality of the writing, the 74-year-old actor is equally jazzed about his on-screen colleagues, from star Liev Schreiber to Paula Malcomson as Ray’s wife, Eddie Marsan and Dash Mihok as Ray’s brothers, and beyond. “I’ve compared it to playing center court at Wimbledon, where you hit the ball and the ball comes back fast and with spin. It ups your game. We’re all a team, a family and very appreciative of each other.”
If Mickey isn’t much of a role model, the actor who plays him is to Schreiber. “To have someone as accomplished as he is, and who’s been around the business as long as he has, be so excited about coming to work day after day, is really inspiring,” he says.
It’s tempting to view Voight’s funny/scary portrayal of Mickey as a culmination of the two halves of his movie career: the brooding star magnetism that signified his work in such classics as “Midnight Cowboy,” “Deliverance” and “Coming Home,” and the villainous character work that opened up for him after playing a convict in “Runaway Train.”
Voight agrees. “I’m playing on a lot of different areas of my life, strangely enough,” he says. “Before ‘Runaway Train’ I had done a lot of research into prisons, so I felt comfort there. When I did ‘The Champ,’ I was doing boxing training, so this has a little bit of that. And it’s like I’m working onstage again, like the early part of my career, when I was so excited to get into the work.”
Enthusiasm for acting has always been a hallmark of his career. Voight, who traces his intuition for acting to a sixth-grade school play in which his comic character — a blustery German fashioned after his grandfather — had to tell a series of funny stories. Sensing a need to keep his fellow grade-school performers on their toes, he switched up the jokes between rehearsal and performance.
“I didn’t want the kids to get used to the punch lines, not listen, and overact,” he says. “I wanted it to be live, spontaneous and authentic.”
Voight hasn’t always been a public figure for just his acting. He’s a prominent conservative voice — “It’s gotten challenging to be in Hollywood and have points of view that are not of the status quo, and that’s unfortunate,” is all he’ll say about politics for now — and until a few years ago had a much-publicized estrangement with his daughter, Oscar-winning star Angelina Jolie. Voight’s been quoted as saying he wasn’t informed about Jolie’s mastectomy until it was news, and while he’s reluctant to broach that topic, he says, “Of course, she was very brave. She’s trying to avert what she’s seen her mom go through.” (Marcheline Bertrand, Jolie’s mother and Voight’s ex-wife, died from cancer, in 2007.)
For now, he’s grateful to be a working actor with a character who animates him. Just slipping on Mickey’s ring, gold bracelet and necklace, and T-shirt/blazer combo helped him ease into Mickey on set. “His taste is still back in the early ’80s, but he thinks he looks great,” says Voight.
Tonight’s episode only ratchets up the revelations about Mickey’s motivations and temperament, starting with a visit to an old flame (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and ending with an eye-opening scene confirming that Mickey’s way of cutting loose can never be pigeonholed. “That’s the thing about Mickey, he’ll surprise you,” says Voight. “He’s wide open, full-throttle. He doesn’t give a s–t, you know? He’s actually a runaway train.”
RAY DONOVAN
Tonight at 10, Showtime
THE BEST OF JON VOIGHT
MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969): Voight’s breakthrough role was as Texas hustler Joe Buck opposite Dustin Hoffman as Ratso Rizzo. “We became friends, and he was the first person to tell me I was going to be good. He said, ‘You belong in this world.’”
DELIVERANCE (1972): Voight (below with Ronny Cox, Ned Beatty and Burt Reynolds) plays one of four friends on a canoeing trip. “It was a bit dangerous. You’d come to a line in the river, and that meant there was going to be a waterfall on the other side. What I remember most is the chemistry of those guys.”
COMING HOME (1978): Voight’s Oscar-winning role was as a scarred, paraplegic Vietnam vet, opposite Jane Fonda. “What set us off in the proper direction was an improvisation over a pool table with a bunch of real vets who had different points of view. I said very little, and you could see this guy was suffering in isolation. That’s when the character came alive for me.”
THE CHAMP (1979): As ex-boxer Billy Flynn, Voight starred in a teary classic. “I enjoyed working with young Ricky [Schroder]. We’re still in touch.” Is it the saddest movie ever, as many claim? “I don’t know how they arrive at these things, but all you have to do is see it to say that!”
RUNAWAY TRAIN (1985): Voight earned an Oscar nomination for his turn as a prison escapee. “It was an extreme character, but I’m a character actor after all. I knew I had to really go for it, to change myself. Director Andrei Konchalovsky didn’t typecast, and I was very proud of that performance.”